Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down
by Sinical-Sarchasm
Summary: The child's song was true in the Black Death and is once again true in Voldemort's Dark Death. Hermione has lost Harry...but this one has a twist. Please R/R.


A.N.: Very odd...I wrote this on a whim while on the bus to a school trip to Knott's Berry Farm. It just sort of came to me. There are no names, but I think it's pretty obvious who the four people mentioned are...just in case you can't tell, the narrator is Hermione, her love is Harry, the Dark Lord is Voldemort (well, obviously), and the Rat...well, figure it out yourself. Please enjoy and review! 

Disclaimer: I don't own anything that I don't own, in case you haven't figured it out by now. 

***

As I sit by the solitary bank of the quiet and unusually peaceful creek, knees tucked up to my chin and tears streaming down my face, the old words of the long-forgotten child's game run through my mind: "Ashes, ashes, we all fall down." Created in the Black Death, with meaning then and now once more with meaning in Voldemort's Dark Death. Rats killed anyone then, and now the Rat and many others kill anyone once more. 

But this death which the Rat caused was not just anyone's death. Not a random, miscellaneous person. He was not anyone. He was my love. He loved me, me with the bushy hair and the bossy attitude. He was the Boy Who Lived, who became the Boy Who Loved, who became the Boy Who Died. 

The Boy who Died. It has an odd, eerie ring to it. Perhaps because so many other boys have died in this, because there were so many other Boys Who Died, countless, nameless, unknown, forgotten boys who died before he did. Maybe only because the Boy Who Lived should never have died. 

If he was the Boy Who _Lived_, then he should have always lived, never died. But then again, ashes, ashes, we all fall down. He fell in a midst of ashes. Grey ashes, still warm from the fire which begot the somber objects. My heart, or what I have left of my heart now that it has broken into millions of scattered shards, bleeds for the corpse which lies among these cruel ashes, the boy whom I loved so much. 

I loved him and the Rat loved him. Strange thought, it may seem, that the Rat who killed him so harshly and torturously, could have loved anyone, let alone the one which the Rat killed. But I know. It was the whole reason for the killing. The Dark Lord knew that the Rat could not do his hateful work if the Rat loved. And how better to end the love and get rid of the Dark Lord's most powerful adversary than to have the Rat kill him? It killed two birds with one stone. 

For love must end in the harsh, cold world that we inhabit now. And so, we all fall down amidst ashes. Death brings death not only to what he has killed but also to all which we share...love, friendship...and even hatred. For just as it is hard to love the mangled corpse which lies, forgotten and forsaken in the dark, shadowy regions of the masses of charred wood, molten plastic, and burnt ashes, such is it hard to hate. 

My mind's eye's gaze remains on my lost love's startled and shocked visage which even his brave facade can no longer hide, and finally I understand the truth: love cannot survive amidst death. I can feel sorrow, regret, anger...but no love. I no longer have the capacity to love the boy who once was my all, who has become this cold and ugly corpse. 

The scene still plays itself in my mind, looping like the old LP's my parents loved so much. Cruel spells...crucio, laceratus, too many to remember, and finally the utmost, an Avada Kedavra...for a split moment I see the anguish, the fear, the sorrow, the shock on my love's face, all finally unhidden...a blinding flash of green light and a deafening scream of unveiled terror...and then my love's dead body, limp among the ashes and ruins of what once had been Hogwarts. 

My salty, sorrowing tears must finally cease, drying on my face and leaving my eyes red but dry. But still I sit there by the creek, reliving it all again and again and again even though each time I feel as though I can take it no longer. Terror...shock...hurt...wonder...power...sorrow...everything I ever felt or ever saw anyone feel there returns to me. 

I sigh. No use in doing this any longer. No point to keep thinking about it. Thoughts won't change anything. No matter how much we think, it will still be true: ashes, ashes, we all fall down. 

I slowly step into the creek, letting the sweet, calm, cold water wash me...wash me of my love's blood which forever taints me and of the ashes in which he lies because of me. And I involuntarily shiver, not because of the frigidity of the creek's water but because of my one, singular thought which blocks out all others: none of this would have happened if I, the Rat, had had never killed him...I, who both he and the Dark Lord trusted. If I had not killed him. But too late now...too late. The words echo within the deep chasms of my mind: it's too late now. 

I whisper an apology, to the air or to my love or to whoever can hear me, the only thing I still can do: "I'm sorry. But I guess I thought I had to do it." 

And then, just as I begin to leave the forlorn creek for an unknown destination, I whisper seven more words, almost an afterthought: "And perhaps I did have to." 

*Finis*


End file.
